NEWSLETTER
We have seen this multiple times this year from the Cubs. Well, in the minors, I mean.
A Cubs’ farm team strings two or three singles together, and then a walk or two, and then a few more singles, and the next thing you know they have put a very crooked inning on the board with barely any extra base hits to be seen. Tennessee has done it. Myrtle Beach has done it (albeit with the help of a Eloy Jimenez grand slam, but that accounted for just 4 of the 11 runs). And last night South Bend did it again.
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times … and so have you. With their team down late in a game, you hear a fan say something like “Need a homer here”.
And the Cubs’ farm system is here to say “No, you just need to get on base by any means available”. Here’s the thing about getting men on base: you can only have three of them on at a time. After that, even a lowly single results in RBIs. Long balls are nice, but not required to score runs in bunches. [Brett: Unless you are the big league team, apparently.]
In this instance, it was an eight-run inning for the South Bend Cubs that featured just one extra-base hit (a double).
Extrapolating from a few events is dangerous, but these huge innings (combined with other indications) suggest that the Cubs are really pushing the benefits of just getting on base up and down the farm system, and that to a great degree the players are buying in. Take what the pitcher offers, and if the best you can do with that is a single, then take it. Put that single with half a dozen others and you get, well, you get a patented 2017 Minor League Cubs Monster Inning.
Of course, with a lineup packed full of young sluggers, I suspect few of those ‘just singles’ would wind up bouncing off the walls and going for two bases anyway.
Triple A: Iowa Cubs
Iowa 3, Memphis 1
The Iowa bullpen had a lot of work to do in this one, but they did it well.
Double A: Tennessee Smokies
Montgomery 8, Tennessee 3
The Smokies were on the wrong side of a big inning in the first.
High A: Myrtle Beach Pelicans
The Pelicans had the night off.
Low A: South Bend Cubs
South Bend 9, Dayton 2
On the road, the Cubs started the ninth inning against a good Dayton team trailing 2-1.
Other Notes
